How can I compare you to other coaching companies?

Before you commit to a real estate coach, make them answer the important questions on our "compare a coach" website to ensure that you get the best coaching program available for your money.

Here are the questions you must get answers for before you commit to a coach:

1. What qualifies you to be a coach?

Tim & Julie Harris spent over a decade as top-producing agents, building one of the most successful real estate practices in the Columbus, Ohio marketplace. Their first year in the business, they sold over “100 homes the hard way – 1 home at a time”, a feat that earned them the Re/Max platinum award, along with recognition and honors from the National Association of Realtors®. They built on that initial success, matching & exceeding that sales volume every year for the next decade, before ultimately deciding to help other agents match their success through coaching & training.

As coaches, Tim & Julie Harris have coached thousands of clients from all major brokerages, and again spent over a decade perfecting a coaching styling that helps every agent succeed regardless of location or market conditions. Tim & Julie got into coaching back in the 1990’s as “Howard Brinton stars” – on-tour with the Brinton organization as he helped agents achieve success at locations across the country. Later, they left Brinton to become executive coaches for the Mike Ferry Organization. In 2007 they restarted their coaching business and they have since become recognized as being one of the top coaching companies in North America.

In addition to their real estate sales & coaching experience, Tim & Julie Harris are qualified by the return-on-investment of their students. On average, students of Tim & Julie Harris have a return of 7x to 10x their investment on coaching – an impressive ROI unmatched in the coaching industry.

Tim and Julie Harris are the very definition of 'Been there-done that'. Tim & Julie spent over 10 years as top-producing agents. In their 20's they sold over 100 homes their first year in the business. Thereafter, they consistently sold 100-200 homes per year for the rest of their careers. They have been featured in many articles including the National Association of Realtors magazine.

2. Who will my actual coach be and what are their qualifications?

Every one of our new coaching clients starts their coaching relationship with a trained, experienced member of our real estate coaching team. Our coaches are all licensed, top-producing real estate professionals, who spend the time to learn your personal goals, unique strengths, and areas for improvement. Maybe for the first time you will establish goals, set priorities, and get into action on the road to real estate success.

Other coaching companies are more interested in your money than your success, so when you enroll, instead of being assigned to an expert real estate coach, you'll end up with a script-reading employee, who typically has never sold real estate and often has no industry qualifications. That's why it's very important to find out who your actual coach is going to be. You need to be confident that the person you're going to meet with on a regular basis is capable of understanding your individual goals & needs, and able to help you create the action plan that leads you to real estate mastery.

3. Have you (and my prospective coach) ever sold real estate?

Tim & Julie Harris spent a decade as top-producing agents, sold over 100 homes their first year in the business, and earned the Re/Max Platinum Award and numerous other honors throughout their career. They've got experience with the entire process of building a successful real estate business from the ground up.

In addition, every single member of our coaching staff is a trained, licensed, practicing real estate professional - all with decades of top-producing real estate experience.

Our competitors can't say the same thing: Would it surprised you to know that our main competitors NEVER sold real estate or haven't sold real estate for 3-4 decades. Given a choice, doesn't it just make sense to hire a coach that has truly been there and done that...vs someone who just read about in a book?

4. Does your coaching company have a student loan program?

In order to provide the highest quality of service possible for our clients, we are proud to offer low cost, affordable monthly pricing for our real estate coaching & training programs, as well as flexible six- and twelve-month student loan programs to help you finance your real estate coaching education. We're the only real estate coaching company that provides this level of financial flexibility, because we're committed to helping you succeed in real estate, no matter where you start out in the industry.

Other coaching organizations don't provide any payment or financing options, but require agents to sign a one-sided 12-month payment contract and then sue their students that can't afford the payments! It's a nasty, unethical business practice, and if their coaching was any good to start with it wouldn't be required.

Only Tim & Julie Harris offer "pay as you go" coaching that agents can afford - because our clients don't leave, so we don't have to file lawsuits in order to keep them!

Misleading coaching contracts have become a serious issue in real estate coaching, because literally thousands of agents have been taken advantage of by unscrupulous coaching organizations. If you want to learn more about this, the Wall Street Journal has covered this scandal in-depth.

5. How many coaching clients does my coach currently coach?

Don't sign up with a coaching "body shop". We limit the number of clients & sessions for each coach to ensure that you get their full attention. Coaching is built on a personal relationship of trust, not through mass-produced script readers talking you through the pages of an outdated playbook. We recognize the critical importance of the time & attention required for your success, and work to ensure that you're NOT just an anonymous customer,

In addition to limiting the clients for each coach, we also limit the number of agents we coach in each MLS area. You will NOT be going "head to head" with a bunch of our other students in your local market area....we are careful to not create a new competitor in your back yard! If your area is closed you will be added to the wait list for your MLS area.

6. Can I listen to real coaching calls from one of your coaches before I hire you?

Yes, absolutely! Here are audio links to some example coaching calls. Listen in now as Head Coach Julie Harris conducts 3 calls with 3 different agents. These calls were recently featured by Inman News in "Inman listens in: how coaching calls really work", which discusses the value that real estate coaching offers to agents.

With us your coaching calls will be on the same day and time. If you need to reschedule..no worries. You will be given direct access to your coaches schedule to reschedule your call if needed.

Your schedule is yours - our coaches don't move calls. Your day and your time is YOUR DAY AND YOUR TIME.

Our competition can't make this claim: organizations running high-volume "body shops" can't provide the quality of service, attention to detail, or commitment to your success that we can, and scheduling is one of many areas in their service that suffers as a result.

8. Can I choose my coach and switch coaches if I want to?

Your success in real estate coaching depends on finding the best coach to complement your own personal style, business challenges, market conditions, and more. Will your prospective coaching company allow you to switch coaches, or are you "assigned" to a coach and then stuck with them throughout your coaching program?

Tim & Julie Harris allow you to choose from among the licensed, professional coaches on our trained, professional coaching staff - and at your request, we allow you to switch coaches up to once a month. Maybe you feel like your coach doesn't understand you, or maybe you want to sample the experience of various top-producing coaches on our team. Whatever the reason, we let you find the best coach to suit your needs and build a solid professional relationship with over time.

9. What comprehensive training materials do I get IN ADDITION to coaching calls?

In addition, our program contains the "Real Estate Treasure Map" - Tim & Julie's step-by-step, fill in the blanks business plan for real estate success, along with lead generation tools, pre-listing packages, listing presentations, buyer presentations, negotiating tools, access to our handpicked vendor network, and much more. It's a business in a box, with everything you need for your real estate business.

Watch the video below for a walkthrough of the Real Estate Coaching Essentials program. This comprehensive, web-based repository of coaching & training material is in addition to your regularly scheduled 1-on-1 coaching calls. It literally distills decades of real estate experience in a step-by-step, seamless training experience available on-demand whenever you need it.

10. Can you show me an example of what type of plan of action you will provide for me?

Yes, thanks for asking! Each of our coaching students develops their own, unique action plan based on their own goals, strengths, and local market conditions, but we provide some common business planning tools that all agents will benefit from. To get a better feel for our approach to your individual action plan, download a free copy of our business plan, The Real Estate Treasure Map.

11. How exactly will my coaching experience be personalized for me vs following a rigid decades old agenda that my not be a match for my style?

We believe in personalized coaching based on YOU, your market, your natural style and your specific goals. Our business plan, the Real Estate Treasure Map, pulls this information out and allows us to coach you to your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.

We're the only company that personalizes your coaching. Our competitors focus on gimmicks, which is why they're known by what they teach, instead of by teaching agents unique skillsets designed to meet their individual needs. One of our competitors teaches "cold calling", another teaches "Facebook & Twitter", and yet another teaches "real estate by referral". Instead of simply pushing a specific technique, we focus on delivering what's best for your own unique situation.

12. Will you (or my prospective coach) ever coach me to use illegal or unethical practices?

Tim & Julie Harris coaching programs are founded on the best ethical practices used by top-producing agents in today's industry. We will NEVER, ever ask you to do anything illegal or unethical. Our real estate practice was based on personal integrity and providing outstanding service to our buyers and sellers - and those principles of integrity are the foundation of our coaching practice today.

The same is not true for our competitors - some of whom train their students to rely on cold-calling and other deceptive tactics, and now tell them to offer fake surveys to get around do-not-call legislation.

Guess what? Cold calling with a fake survey is still illegal - and for good reason. It offends prospects, ruins your network, undermines your credibility, and may lead you to hundreds of thousands of dollars in FTC fines. So why would our competitors promote this practice if it's a risky proposition? Because that's their gimmick - that's all they teach.

13. Will I be the only person on the call with my coach or are my coaching calls 'shared'?

Tim & Julie Harris® Real Estate Coaching provides 1-on-1 professional real estate coaching based on YOUR unique strengths & goals - that's something that requires a personal, 1-on-1 interaction. That's why in our programs, you will always be the only one on the call with your coach, unless you wish to have a spouse, partner or team member with you on the call. This is truly one-on-one coaching, not a group call.

Our competitors can't make the same claim. They might promise you personalized coaching, but if they place you into a large group call setting led by a script-reader, ask yourself how personalized this "body shop" approach to coaching really is.

Most of our competitors have folks they call "coaches", but who have never actually sold real estate. This forces them to be dependent on reading coaching scripts to make up for their lack of real experience - and it means that when you ask them real world questions about real estate, they just can't give you a straight answer. That's why over 25% of one "big name" coaching company's clients call to cancel after their very first meeting with their "coach".

Our coaches are different - all of our coaches are licensed, active sales people with a documented real estate sales history in boom and distressed markets. This allows our coaches to coach from experience, excellent coaches training and the real world that our clients face. We have walked in their shoes.

15. Will I be coerced into attending live events or spending more money AFTER I join your coaching organization?

Other coaching companies continue to upsell you once you've made a basic commitment - they say you need to spend more to make the coaching program "really work" (and if it doesn't work, they claim it's because YOU didn't work it hard enough). The extra expenditure required makes your monthly bill a lot more than you expected.

We don't do that. We work hard to provide overwhelming value to our clients on every call. Any additional expenditure happens on special projects like upgrading presentations, etc, and are budgeted for and built into the Treasure Map (business plan). No additional expenditure is ever 'required' to make our coaching 'work'.

The same thing applies to live "events" promoted by the competition: those events are actually thinly-disguised sales rallies designed to 'upsell' you into a more expensive coaching program. In contrast, we have a daily radio show, occasional live events, and of course your regularly scheduled coaching calls. You are not coerced or required to attend anything additional, but our radio show is very popular and a great supplement to your regular coaching.

16. Do you (and my prospective coach) have provable experience in other aspects of real estate such as: New construction, investing, distressed real estate?

Absolutely. Our coaching staff is experienced in Luxury Home Sales, standard equity sales, distressed sales, REOs, BPOs, Short Sales, Corporate and voluntary relocation, new construction, flips and property management. This is important since different clients gravitate toward certain aspects of real estate, and different markets and market conditions call for pivoting toward new opportunities.

True success in real estate involves mastering the basic principles of real estate sales, but needs to go a lot further than that to help you build a rewarding, profitable career. Being able to specialize areas such as new construction or distressed properties gives you the ability to better define your market niche & grow in a way that makes sense based on your strengths & local market conditions.

17. How many different forms of lead generation will I learn?

We believe in a strong and balanced combination of lead sources that are appropriate to our client, their personality, market place, budget and skills. Our clients can choose from up to 50 different methods of generating business, not just one that may or may not fit their needs.

The competition can't say this - all of our competitors focus exclusively on making cold calls and or referral based real estate, which have their place as lead-generation tools, but shouldn't be used exclusively as the basis of your business. If the recession taught agents anything, it's that you CAN'T rely on a single source of leads for financial security.

18. How successful are your coaching students, and can you provide examples?

Our "average" client sells 76 homes a year, has 99.4% of list price vs. the average in each market (list to sell price-ratio), and our client listings have far less than average days-on-market, many are less than 10 DOM due to some of the techniques our clients understand regarding pricing, marketing and negotiating.

Another way of looking at it is to look at the Return On Investment (ROI) of each coaching dollar you spend. As a business owner, you must look at each dollar spent and ask what you can expect in return. According to a recent poll of our clients, well more than $10 returned vs. every $1 spent.

Want to see what kind of results our coaching programs produce? Listen to the interviews below with successful Tim & Julie Harris® Real Estate Coaching clients, where they provide unsolicited testimonials for us on the effectivenes of our coaching programs in helping them to achieve success in today's real estate marketplace.

19. How long will it take for me to see actual..money in the bank..results from your coaching program?

As fast as you get to work implementing what we ask of you. It's not unusual to see nearly immediate results, due to our very targeted, direct approach. Once we establish what your goals are, it's time to get to work!

Because we don't believe in forcing a round peg into a square hole, but instead believe in bringing out the BEST in you, we get results faster and with less pain than other companies who believe in 'their way or the highway'.

You got into real estate to create the life of your dreams, and you're looking to help make that dream a reality. Let's get to that as soon as possible.

Those are the questions! Make sure to get answers before you hire a coach - and it will immediately be obvious why Tim & Julie Harris® are better than the competition.

Of course, anybody can simply tell you how great they are - what really matters is what their customers say. That's why we also recommend that you take a look at our student testimonial videos & Google and Yelp reviews for detailed feedback from our members in their own words.